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This article is by Michael Lee, founder of agency-search consultancy Madam.

It was at the end of a pitch a couple of years ago.

The CMO of a large U.S. food company suggested that clients no longer waited for agencies to bring them the next big thing. They were getting there on their own, thank you.

“Humbug,” I muttered while still smiling. But the thought stayed with me. Agencies always led clients to the next big idea. Didn’t they? That was the unwritten law. I’m not so sure that’s the case these days.

Clients are flexing newly discovered creativity and innovation muscles--muscles encouraged by the new digital and social worlds and focused on driving their businesses forward. They are having fun and becoming very good at it. They are building direct relationships with the best media and technology companies.

Google, Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Pinterest, for example, are very comfortable in the company of clients and are helping them innovate and engage directly with their audiences. Even Mayor Bloomberg engages on Instagram (if the last two years have taught us anything, it's that politicians are brands).

“There are some ridiculously creative people emerging from the media technology world," was the way one client summed it up for me.

Michelle Klein, VP of global marketing at Smirnoff says, “we have some great agency partners and expect them to bring ideas, but not exclusively….we’re working with start-ups, and we’re building brilliant alliances with technology and media companies.”

Case in point, Mondelez recently announced a very ambitious and interesting new mobile-technology initiative with nine different start-ups.

Joel Kades, CMO for Virgin Mobile Latin America, speaks to this creative-innovation movement: "We never have the budgets of our competitors; we need to innovate and even invent media that doesn’t yet exist.”

I even had a major financial-services client tell me that everything they were doing was to “get closer to the people who make things…to eradicate the elongated chain of command.”

While this isn’t necessarily new news to some of you, it’s becoming more and more prevalent as clients clamor to get “closer to the people who make things, not take a meeting with people who know people who make things.”

One important piece of evidence lies in where clients are looking for new talent. They’re no longer just looking for the smart MBA from Business School.

“We’re hiring people with publishing and media backgrounds," Klein continued, “what we need isn’t taught in traditional business schools. We need people inside, working day to day on this stuff.”

Jeff Jones, CMO of Target, is building a “world-class in-house creative organization that is led by Todd Waterbury, the former co-executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy New York.”

Brand teams are indeed becoming an eclectic mix. Clients are recruiting developers from universities like Stanford, because young talent want to have a direct influence on major brands, and not necessarily through an agency.

And they are dipping into the agency talent pool more often that ever. Today, there are number of ex-agency people who have become very impactful and influential clients: from Esther Lee at AT&T (and formerly Coca-Cola) to Dana Anderson at Mondelez, Jonathan Mildenhall at Coke, Danielle Cook at Starbucks, and Jeff Jones at Target, to name a few.

And let’s not forget Cannes.

I’ve had the honor of judging at Cannes a few times in my career, and it’s astounding how much has changed in the last decade. In 2001 Cannes was about Gold Lions, the networks, production companies, the Carlton Terrace, the Gutter Bar and conversations with Scandinavian creative teams at the Martinez until 3 a.m.

Current estimates are that clients now account for about 25% of the Cannes Lions delegates. For those of us who attend yearly, this could even feel like a low number.